About Us
How Roughstuff was created – Tobias
It's been more than 10 years since I (Tobias) founded Roughstuff. Over the years we sold thousands of our jackets, even as far away as Japan, and gave the fabric "Loden" back its well-deserved place in the outdoor industry. It's been a long journey from then until now. I'd be happy to tell you what it looked like. Here's my story.
Even as a child, I was always allowed to go hunting in nature with my father. Since he traveled widely for work and made many friends, he also gave me the opportunity to see a lot of the world, as far as southern Africa, and to form deep connections with nature.
For many years we spent our holidays in the African bush, where electricity only came from a generator, hot water was only available from a wood-fired boiler, and many dangers and wild animals were "waiting" in nature. The freedom and personal responsibility that I experienced there have had a profound impact on my entire life.
After my training and studies, I initially followed in my father's professional footsteps and, like him, traveled a lot. So at some point I found myself in the high mountains of Austria with local friends. I with my "modern" outdoor equipment and they with traditional loden clothing. I already knew loden well from hunting, but not what advantages and uses it could have outdoors. Let's make it short: Up on the mountain, at an altitude of over 2,000 meters, and after we had fought our way through waist-deep snow, my functional clothing at the time was wet, I was freezing and gratefully accepted the loden vomit that was offered to warm me up. My friends didn't have my problems back then and so I decided to look for technical loden clothing so that I would be better equipped for the next time. But there was nothing.
All the items available were very traditional and did not correspond at all to my ideas of modern outdoor clothing. But since I really wanted to try out technical loden clothing, there was only one thing left to do: make it myself...
I had already tried sewing a few things with my grandmother's old sewing machine, but it was clear to me from the beginning that the project of sewing a jacket would be far beyond my sewing skills.
So I started looking for a seamstress to help me implement my ideas. The result was my first "technical" loden jacket, which from then on accompanied me on my tours and in everyday life, and I was amazed at what this "unfashionable" material could do. From trekking tours in the far north to mountain tours in the Alps to forays through the forests of Eastern Europe - the jacket was always with me and served me well.
Over time, the jacket aroused interest among friends and acquaintances and I decided to order ten jackets in different sizes from my seamstress.
After friends and acquaintances had been taken care of, there were still a few jackets left, which I put on an online sales platform. A short time later, an editor from a magazine noticed the jacket and we agreed that he could test it. A few weeks later, I received very positive feedback from him and the assurance of a short report in the next issue.
I was very pleased with his feedback and the report and warned my seamstress that she might have to make another jacket or two. Before the report was published, a friend quickly created a simple website for me on which I gave my private phone number and, along with a little information, there were a few self-made photos. Everything was done in a hurry.
Saturday morning shortly after 7 a.m. The phone rang and woke me up. An older gentleman was on the phone and he told me very cheerfully how happy he was to have finally found a jacket like this, as he had been looking for something like this for so long. It was not to be the only call of this kind. In the end, my seamstress was a bit overwhelmed, had to postpone her vacation and we sent out a few jackets.
Since these were so well received, the idea was to create a company. However, it took over a year before "Roughstuff" was actually launched. A year in which I paid a lot of tuition and had to overcome a number of hurdles before Roughstuff could finally get off the ground.
In our first year, we visited our first trade fair in Dortmund. We built our own stand and there was a large banner on our wall showing a friend of mine in front of a striking mountain in the Scottish Highlands, which I had taken of him.
This banner then led to us meeting our first trader. He immediately recognised the mountain as he had happened to be in the same region of the Highlands two weeks ago. This was just one of many chance friendships we made and we also had many funny and wonderful experiences.
For example, there was a Japanese dealer we met at the outdoor trade fair in Friedrichshafen and for whom we made pink men's jackets with blue zippers, or pictures of a customer who sailed to the South Pole for several weeks wearing one of our jackets, or another who wore his worn-out loden jacket with his suit at his wedding. These and many other experiences remain in my fond memories.
Over the years, Roughstuff grew and we moved from our parents' attic to the first floor, then to our first office and then soon after to a larger one because our warehouse and office had become too small for us. Always with a lot of passion, honesty and the desire to do things a little differently.
Unfortunately, this kind of growth always brings with it some difficulties and in the end you find yourself in a situation where you spend all day just managing the company, paying bills, getting annoyed with the tax office and keeping enough liquidity available. That wasn't something I enjoyed and was far from my nature of doing things a little differently. So I got to the point where I didn't want to continue.
I sold the company without further ado and then worked there solely on developing new products. After about 1.5 years I decided to leave the company and close the chapter on "rough stuff" and loden clothing to give my family and me a longer break, during which we hiked through Sweden from south to north.
This is where the story and the name Roughstuff actually ends, which, by the way, is meant to refer to “rough stuff” or “coarse material” in a figurative sense, which in Old High German is called Lodo or Ludo, which is what we call our modern-day Loden.
But some things in life never really let you go and so it happened that my good friend Claus, who I first got to know through my company, secured the trademark rights to Roughstuff and is now putting a lot of heart and soul into breathing life back into this little brand. I wish him every success, hope that he will have as many great experiences as I have and I am very excited to see what products will be created in the future. I really liked what I have seen so far and it fits in with the spirit that Roughstuff once stood for.
Your Tobias
How Roughstuff will continue in 2024 – Claus
My name is Claus and I met Tobias more than 10 years ago when he had just founded Roughstuff. I had a small, fine shop in Lauf and as a true Franconian who loves hiking, packrafting , backcountry skiing and was born and rooted in the region, I had always been familiar with loden fabric.
So it happened that I became one of his first dealers and the Loden jacket quickly became our best-selling jacket. The jacket was not only very well received in the shop, but the Roughstuff products also accompanied me on my private tours, whether in my Franconian homeland, the Scottish Highlands or winter tours in Scandinavia.
Over the years, a very close friendship grew between Tobias and me and I also took over the distribution of Roughstuff products in southern Germany.
You could say that I'm a pretty big fan of the brand, so it was a happy coincidence that the opportunity arose to secure the brand rights and continue the Roughstuff chapter. I'm delighted that the products will be available again and that the range will include further developed classics as well as exciting new products.
We have a lot planned, but we will remain as we have always been: down-to-earth, rooted, honest and with a lot of passion in everything we do.
Your Claus
